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As promised in Part I of this series, I also thought it would be worth seeing who the best value NBA stars are. It is great to land an NBA player contract at below market value but even better than that is landing an NBA star at a low price. Again, the basic metric that I created and will be using is dollars per win share (DPS). The average DPS in the NBA is 1.6 million (1.6m) and, as you would expect, there are only a handful of stars who earn less than that.

Three big names that are paid at about the going rate of 1.6m DPS are: Draymond Green, Nikola Vucevic, and Kyle Lowry. But in terms of making this ranking, there were two qualifications: 1) the player must have over eight total win shares for 2014-15 and 2) they must make less than the average DPS. Interestingly enough, there are five stars who are paid over 2m DPS: Paul Millsap, LaMarcus Aldridge, Kevin Love, Blake Griffin, and…LeBron James. Interpret from that what you wish. You’ll notice a repeat at the top of this list which is why he also made the lede photo of my discussion on why the NBA center position is alive and well.Steph Curry and Tim Duncan both made the ranking, as expected, but might not be quite as high as you would expect them to be. And Anthony Davis is on here because he is in the final year of his rookie contract before that mega-extension kicks in.

If you listen to the radio or even mildly keep up with the latest in popular music, you know that the Canadiens have been atop the charts. With Toronto natives Drake and Abel Tesfaye (better known as The Weeknd) trading off spots in the Billboard Hot 100 and the top 10 in the iTunes charts, music from Canada has risen. But how about in the sports scene?

The U.S. has owned the basketball world for most of the past however-many decades but there are some noteworthy Canadiens looking to continue to represent the North. As Drake shouted out in his single Charged Up, Cory Joseph is the latest Canadien to bring home a championship. (Joseph won a title in 2014 as a member of the San Antonio Spurs and just this off-season signed with the Toronto Raptors.)

Other notable Canadien-born NBA players include the greats Kelly Olynyk and Robert Sacre as well as Sauce Castillo, Tristan Thompson, Anthony Bennett, Joel Anthony, and Sam Dalembert. Canada’s pride, though, rests in the youngster Andrew Wiggins. Wiggins capped off a solid rookie year with nods as both an All-Rookie First Team player and the NBA Rookie of the Year. Wiggins is also a Toronto native with five siblings. One of Wiggins siblings, Nick, is in fact a teammate of Andrew’s on the Minnesota Timberwolves.

While I wouldn’t go betting too much on the Minnesota Timberwolves this season, I would say that there does seem to be an upward trend of Canadiens contribution to the NBA. CanadaSportsBetting.com would be the place if you did decide you wanted to take a chance on the long shot T’wolves at making a significant splash in 2016.

We glamorize the biggest contracts and superstars because that’s what brings in the biggest revenue for the NBA. There is, however, a variation on most valuable players that general managers are always scouring for and that is the best value players. Draymond Green, for one, went from little-known role player to a starring role on a championship team. Zach Lowe reported on a summer podcast that he, not LeBron James or any other mega-star, was the name tossed around most. Everyone knows who the big stars are, but it takes a keen eye to spot a player who is well out-playing his contract.

So, with the help of basketball-reference.com, I elected to journey into the large databases of contracts and statistics in search of quantifying the best value players. My brute force effort of matching up player’s stats to contracts probably wasn’t the most efficient, but it was certainly exhaustive.

To be sure, there is no clear-cut way to measure value. 2014-15 total win shares was my statistic of choice to measure against 2015-16 contract value. As PER is known to bias offensive and scoring players, I figured that it would overvalue scorers and undervalue defensive players. I am not claiming this to be perfect but it certainly helps give us a good idea of value.

The average dollars per win share (DPS) in the NBA is 1.6 million (1.6m). To factor out the noise, I made a lower qualifying limit of two win shares to be eligible for this ranking. With that in mind, here are the top 10 best value NBA players:

10. Jordan Clarkson, Los Angeles Lakers - 352k DPS

9. Tyler Hansbrough, Charlotte Hornets - 348k DPS

8. David West, San Antonio Spurs - 348k DPS

7. Giannis Antetokounmpo, Milwaukee Bucks - 315k DPS

6. Gorgui Dieng, Minnesota Timberwolves - 300k DPS

5. Mason Plumlee, Portland Trail Blazers - 294k DPS

4. Tarik Black, Los Angeles Lakers - 272k DPS

3. Robert Covington, Philadelphia 76ers - 250k DPS

2. Hassan Whiteside, Miami Heat - 185k DPS

1. Rudy Gobert, Utah Jazz - 126k DPS

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Stay tuned for parts II and II of this series where I take a look at the best value NBA stars...and the worst value players in the league.

Time for my fourth annual top 10 players in the NBA…something that’s undoubtedly going to get some debate going. Now, before we begin, a few clarifications: 1) I’m going to leave Paul George and Kyrie Irving off. It’s too hard to predict where they might fit among these stars coming off their injuries. Kyrie won’t even be back until January. As for Derrick Rose…he just isn’t there anymore. Sports Illustrated ranked him 60th in the league and 18-3-5 on 40-28-81 shooting splits is not worthy of anywhere near the top-10. Hopefully Rose can find a way to get himself fixed sooner rather than later but his post-injury history is not promising. Just a few years back, in my first player ranking on Bases and Baskets, I had him fourth-best in the league.

Second, this is a predictions article first and foremost. Seeing as it is not 2016, this is a forecast of who will be the best 10 players in the league for 2015-2016. And part of being one of the 10 best players in the league means, to me, that you are a player who you can build an organization around. This means that one of my personal favorite players in the league, Draymond Green, doesn’t (yet) make the cut. He’s arguably the best second or third player you could possibly dream up, but he isn’t yet a first option. Basketball is a scorer’s game and these top 10 players #GETBUCKETS. So here’s my ranking of the top 10…

The 2015 Most Improved Player went from being known as a hounding defender to one of the league’s premiere two-way players. 13 points per game on 39-28-76 shooting splits to 20 points per game on 46-37-83 splits. He made a jump from mediocrity to borderline elite offensively and we already know he is one of the league’s best perimeter defenders (2x All-Defensive Second Team player). The newly-minted $92 million man is one of the league’s best 10 players.

9. Blake Griffin

The Clippers couldn’t pull it out in the 2015 conference semis against the Rockets but Blake Griffin absolutely made his presence felt. 27-12-5 for the series after just averaging 24-13-7 against the Spurs in what was arguably the playoffs most scintillating series. Blake is only behind Anthony Davis as the league’s best (traditional) power forward.

The Knicks were a couple losses away from being the league’s worst team last season. Melo did take the year off once he realized the situation was not going to improve but it says something about either Anthony or New York that one of the league’s best 10 players is on such a horrible team. He followed the money and Phil Jackson was supposed to right the ship but for now Melo’s biggest chip is 2016 free agency and hoping New York will lure another one of the players on this ranking. When a future Hall of Famer says you’re one of the five toughest players he’s ever guarded and probably the most well-rounded scorer, you should be winning championships not lottery tickets.

7. Chris Paul

Chris Paul was formerly known as the best point guard in the league, but one Stephen Curry has been coronated after a season of destroying Paul’s ankles. The meme-worthy double behind-the-back that made CP3 look like he was playing Twister was the final straw. Nonetheless, the Clippers PG is still a mainstay in the top-10 best players in the league at age 29. For the season, he mailed in 19-5-10 with 1.9 steals per game on very nearly 50-40-90 shooting. He’s definitely below the four mega-stars in the NBA and as for the other two, he just hasn’t got it done in the post-season. Maybe the Clippers got shafted with a brutal first round matchup in 2015—of which CP3 performed like a magician—but both of the other two players have managed greater post-season success.

6. James Harden

Last season’s near-MVP validated Daryl Morey’s plan to build around a guy who the Oklahoma City Thunder thought was disposable. 27-6-7 on 44-38-87…those are eerily LeBron James numbers. (LeBron’s four years in Miami: 27-8-7 on 54-37-76.) Just imagine…Oklahoma City could have had three of the best six players in the NBA. Wow.

5. Russell Westbrook

Anyone who has read this blog knows that I have a love-hate relationship with one of the league’s most electrifying players. I wrote back in May 2012 that OKC needed to trade Westbrook to win the title. “The Thunder will only be a Conference Final team with him on the roster,” I wrote. So far, that has proven to be true but no one would have foreseen the horrendous injuries that OKC has battled since then. And for February, March, and April, Westbrook put up nearly 30-10-10. For the season, he was 28-7-9 on 43-30-84 shooting. As an individual talent, he’s easily a top-tier player. If that talent can translate to team success remains to be seen. Maybe this year is OKC’s year…but then again we’ve been saying that for the past three years.

4. Anthony Davis

There isn’t much to say about Anthony Davis that hasn’t been said already. A point guard in a 6’10” frame with a polished jumper and now weighs in at 253? With the $145 million extension to match his talent, expect nothing less than 25-10 with 3 blocks a game from the league’s premiere (traditional) power forward.

2015 has been Steph Curry’s year. If there’s an award to win, he has won it. And while the Warriors were far from favorites to win the title at the beginning of the year, Curry led them to notoriety rather quickly. FiveThirtyEight statistically anointed them one of the greatest teams in NBA history. While it would be remiss to ignore the All-Star caliber supporting cast around Curry, he was the engine that drove the team (even if Draymond Green was, as Steve Kerr said, the heartbeat of the team). Until Anthony Davis is able to realize some post-season success, Steph Curry has to sit comfortably ahead of him. One could even make a strong argument for Curry landing in the No. 2 slot ahead of KD.

2. Kevin Durant

He had a tough year due to injury, but Durant has earned and proven to be the second-best player in the league until further notice. It’s really that simple.

1. LeBron James

He almost mailed in a superhuman win in the 2015 NBA Finals. Once Kyrie went down it was simply LeBron vs. A Powerhouse Team. It wasn’t a fair matchup and the Warriors showed that even when you have a blueprint for LeBron (make him a scorer not a facilitator) you have to change that up. The best plan against LeBron is two-fold: 1) change your plan and 2) hope he’s having an off-night. Switching Draymond, Harrison Barnes, and ultimately Andre Iguodala onto the greatest player in the world worked but that was the luxury that no other team in the NBA has. 36-13-9 in the NBA FINALS. 30-11-9 in the PLAYOFFS. Somehow this dude still manages to get bombarded with criticism… But we all know who the best player in the world is.